Definition
Provenance in an enterprise knowledge graph is a record of where a fact came from, how it was resolved, and under which permission it may be shown. It travels with the answer, not as an after-the-fact log.
The problem
A number without a contract is not an answer. A summary without a source is a guess. People can go and check. Agents will not, unless the graph returns the path as part of the result.
What exists today
- Lineage at dataset level, which cannot explain a single entity fact.
- Citation of retrieved chunks, which does not record how entities were resolved.
- Audit logs after the query, which arrive too late to change the answer.
Deca10 research question
Can every graph answer carry source, resolution method and access decision without making query latency unusable?
Evidence
The product requirement is that provenance is on the path, not in a sidecar. Measurement of provenance coverage versus query time is in progress.